ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Leadership and organisational culture
Dorin Retail's new CEO wants to move from a hierarchical, risk-averse culture to a customer-led one. Using the Johnson and Scholes cultural web, she maps the stories staff tell about past failures that led to dismissals, executive reserved parking, a multi-level approval process for refunds, and the 'Dorin way' of never questioning head office. Which action would address the paradigm most directly, given that the web elements reinforce one another?
The best approach is to change several cultural web elements together, such as rewarding initiative, delegating refund authority and publicising constructive risk-taking stories. The paradigm is held in place by mutually reinforcing elements, so altering a single symbol, process or statement is likely to be absorbed and leave the culture unchanged.
- AChange several web elements together, such as rewarding customer-driven initiative, delegating refund authority and publicising stories of constructive risk-takingCorrect
- BReplace the reserved parking only, as this symbol is the most visible element
- CIntroduce a new customer-service vision statement and leave the existing structures unchanged
- DChange the refund approval process only, since control systems are the easiest element to alter
Explanation
The paradigm is sustained by the surrounding elements (stories, symbols, power structures, control systems, routines and rituals, organisational structure). Because they reinforce each other, changing one in isolation is likely to be absorbed by the others. Coordinated change across several elements is needed to shift the paradigm. A vision statement alone leaves the reinforcing elements intact.
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